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Oracle/Sun ditches HDS

Merger fallout begins

Oracle/Sun will no longer resell Hitachi Data Systems' high-end USP array product, the 9990V and 9980V systems.

The writing had potentially been on the wall since Oracle acquired Sun and spoke about storage products it valued, like the 7000 product, and left the 9900s out of the spotlight.

HDS' USP-V line is OEM'd by HP from Hitachi in Japan. Sun resold the USP-V via an arrangement with HDS, which has just sent an email to its resellers announcing the termination of the HDS-Sun deal by the end of this month. Sun has been reselling HDS storage for nine years but the HDS products have no place in Oracle's strategy, which appears to be about building a converged IT stack from component technology that it owns or is open source.

Support for resold HDS gear in the existing Oracle/Sun accounts will be picked up by HDS, which is working out transition programs with Oracle and its channel.

It is thought that the ending of the Oracle/Sun HDS deal represents an opportunity for HP, HDS and their channel partners as Oracle/Sun has no directly comparable products to the 9900s.

HDS is understood to be preparing a major refresh of the USP-V product, which competes with EMC's Symmetrix, IBM's DS8000 and, possibly, its XIV line and 3PAR's InServ arrays. It must be inferred that Oracle/Sun was aware of the USP-V refresh plans and even so went ahead with ending the reseller deal.

David Scott, 3PAR's CEO, asked: "[Is] Oracle splitting from the HDS reseller agreement because it wants to own its own stack (as the general sentiment will be)? Or did they look at Hitachi’s future architecture roadmap and decide that there was nothing there relevant to the shift towards utility computing and private/public clouds (clustering, agility, autonomic management etc)?" ®

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